Presentation from MuleSoft Connect 2018 on how to identify and address API strategy gaps for the enterprise in order to speed up API transformation adoption.

1. How to avoid predictable pitfalls and get stuff done!
Keys to a Successful API Strategy

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Introductions
2
Stephen Fishman
Principal, Customer
Success Architecture
Atlanta, GA
Ömer Tosun
Director, Integration
Specialist and API
Lexigrapher
Bensheim, Germany

3. Imagine you are shopping for a
used car for a member of your
family...

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Used Car Shopping Consideration Factors
4
Price Condition Safety

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Often Overlooked Consideration Factors
5
Cost of insurance Resale value Cost of maintenance

6. Now imagine trying to address
the overlooked factors after
your loved one has already
found a car they’re interested
in...

7. Let’s try this again from the API
strategy perspective...

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API Strategy Consideration Factors
8
Security & governance On-prem vs cloud Tech standards

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Often Overlooked Consideration Factors
10
Rewards vs Compliance
Driven
Canonical model vs “tower of
babel”
Centralization vs federation

10. Now imagine trying to address
these overlooked factors after
your enterprise has already
started on their API journey...

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What Makes a Strategy Sufficient?
Strategy without
tactics is the slowest
route to victory.
Tactics without
Strategy is the noise
before defeat.
- Sun Tzu

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Filling the Strategy Sufficiency Gaps
13
Postel’s law Underlying principles Conflict resolution &
neutralization

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Strategy Concepts - Postel’s Law
14
Be conservative in what you deliver
and liberal in what you accept:
• Inspiration to TimBL for WWW
• Allows for scalable adoption curves
• Broadly applies outside technology
into social contexts
– applies to how you develop standards
and compliance guidelines
– applies to how you enroll people in your
journey (vs. drag them along with you)
– takes a “long game” view for creating
the “to-be” state

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Strategy Concepts - Architectural Principles
15
Having group-developed principles for API
modernization allows for:
• wider collaboration and buy-in by
autonomous teams
• decisions to be balanced, grounded and
rationalized
• tech teams to have balanced dialogue with
business partners
• decision making processes to be
reasonably decoupled from centralized
authority

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Strategy Concepts - Planning for Conflict
16
Having process models for conflicting
goals and directives allows for:
• Balance between short & long term to be
arrived at
• Prioritization and decision models to be
more widely understood
• Risks to be appropriately raised, tracked
and mitigated rather than ignored by
those “with no skin in the game”
• An organization with an active posture
towards learning and development

16. What does this look like in
practice?

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Getting Real - Federate to Scale
18
• Innovation at scale requires
risk & decentralization
• Federation can support
autonomy AND compliance
– federating design and standards
development
– federating creates shared
accountability
• Filling the gap helps to:
– avoid status quo mindsets
– avoid false dichotomies
– drive progress over perfection

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Getting Real - Enrolling the Enterprise
19
• Focus on building an expanding team of
experts instead of an ivory tower
• Shift from “required to do” to “required
to ask”
• “Manufacture yes” via “collecting the no”
• Create momentum by involving your
teams
• Filling the gap helps to:
– create bottom-up social pressure
– avoid autonomy arguments
– bridge between business goals and tech goals
– create reasonable accountability

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Getting Real - Taxonomy Interchange
20
• API is a language
• Establish base vocabulary
• Give room for evolutions and
innovations
• Filling the gap helps to:
– avoid P2P reflex
– avoid endless taxonomy design
– avoid redundant custom
implementations
– support reusability

20. Bonus content for DX &
reusability fans!

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Getting Real - “Branded House” vs. “House of Brands”
23
• What context do you want your API
consumers to see your offering?
• How does that align to their existing
mental model?
• Are you reinforcing the silo mindset
or breaking down the barriers?
• Filling the gap helps to:
– inform a developer experience strategy
– identify innovation use cases
– open up “marketecture” discussions
– uncover content development work

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Getting Real - “Fit for Purpose” vs. “Designed for Reuse”
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• Is reuse critical to your platform
stakeholders?
• How does that align to your financial,
objective and compensation models?
• Have you figured out how to
measure it?
• Filling the gap helps to:
– drive intentionality into decision processes
– educate the organization on the
importance of reuse
– create a balance between short and long
term goals

23. Thank you!